


you were always faster than me

by orphan_account



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-19
Updated: 2017-12-07
Packaged: 2019-01-19 13:37:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 16,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12411330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Jeremy knows; life isn’t kind to a stray who pushes his luck too far. He knows how this goes, and it’s almost okay, because he also knows he can take a hit, or a few.The pack would like to formally disagree on the part where any of this is okay.





	1. you were always faster than me

 

It starts like this: cold, and hungry, in an alley and making the unbelievably stupid fucking mistake of thinking the curly-haired spitfire who just knocked him down is unclaimed, because who could even try to claim that? God, but who wouldn’t try.

“M’sorry,” Jeremy says, hands only half-raised and baring his wrists, and the omega boy looks at him like he just grew a second head or something. “No trouble from me pal, just startled here.”

“Right. Good to fucking know.”

The boy circles and he puts on a nice act but he moves too lazily to be really dangerous; like it’s a game. Shit, maybe that’s worse.

“I am sorry if-” Jeremy starts, with less levity, and finds a hand clamped on his mouth.

“Michael,” the omega says, vaguely gesturing at himself with a fierce grin. “You got a hot date tonight?”

Jeremy feels he’s not quite in a position to answer.

“Do you want one?”

Oh god.

 

*

 

They tumble into a shitty hotel bed Jeremy has to practically beg to pay for, because this one under his hands acts like an alpha does on the silver screen, and Jeremy really isn’t complaining, not at all. Jeremy doesn’t have condoms, but Michael does.

He lays back in the bed and puts his hands above his head and Michael’s eyes widen, but then smiles like the sun and pins Jeremy down. The way he rides him like Jeremy is of use for him to get off and nothing much else turns Jeremy on probably a whole lot more than it should.

Jeremy rolls them over after, not enough to be lying over Michael but just enough to run his hands across him and press small kisses to his neck, hoping they’re allowed. They are. They both fall asleep that way, half-entangled.

He doesn’t fully wake when he hears someone else’s voice on a call.

“I fucked up, Geoff. Look this is the first time since… no, I didn’t fucking _hurt_ him-"

“Can if you wanna,” Jeremy slurs, still mostly asleep and far too honest. Hands grip him tight and hold him down. Oh, that’s nice.

“Send Jack or Gavin,” the voice says. “Like, now.”

 

*

 

It starts like this: they don’t send Jack or Gavin. Jeremy isn’t quite sure who Jack or Gavin are, but he thinks he'd prefer to throw the dice and take a chance on them, because the one with the blue eyes is definitely going to kill him right here in this hotel room and leave a mess for people who are not paid enough to deal with this shit.

It’s a little hard to focus on that particular impending doom, though, when the alpha with the tattoos walks straight over and twists his fingers Jeremy’s hair.

“Morning. So, how’d you meet our boy?”

Not alpha. _Alpha._ Oh.

Jeremy wants to whimper that he didn’t know. Jeremy wants to sink through the mattress then the floor and just keep going. But if he’s sure of anything the fuck at all it’s that if he’s going to get his ass kicked anyway he doesn’t plan on dragging Michael down with him.

He says nothing.

“He didn’t know,” Michael says.

“Oh, jesus christ, stop this bullshit.” Michael says. “Geoff, fuck you, stop or he’s gonna jump out a fucking window.”

It is an appealing option.

 

*

 

Once, he had Matt and Trevor.

He knows he doesn't have the best education, which maybe he should work on working on one of these days, but he’d also happily burn every biology textbook he can get his hands on just to replace it with what he knows: fuck your rules, he had Matt and Trevor. They were his and he was theirs and he had a reason to try and he knew it to his bones.

And he wasn’t good enough for them to stay.

The voice in his head that is Trevor has a whole lot of opinions about the dumbass decisions Jeremy makes in alleyways, while Matt is lazily sighing with judgement, the asshole. Like he knows shit about one night stands anyway. Motherfucker.

_You’re gone. Be quiet._

They won’t and he’d honestly give anything he has for them to never leave.

 

*

 

“I thought-“ Fantastic work with the words there, Dooley.

Real great, you fucking idiot.

“I thought he needed someone,” Jeremy manages. There isn’t a sound but the second alpha, the one sitting like he’s barely holding back from breaking furniture, he moves and it’s an agitated shift.

“I was just. I was there. Then.” Jeremy swallows. “I can go.”

“Geoff,” the ominous alpha says.

“Fuck off, Ryan-”

“We need Gavin or Jack.”

“Oh, do we? You’re a fucking genius!” Geoff snaps, and Jeremy doesn’t want to drop to his knees on instinct, but he does so fucking _fine_ that happened, and everyone stills a little.

Geoff puts his fingers back in Jeremy’s hair and pulls. Jeremy melts to it and absolutely loathes himself.

“We got a kid,” he hears Geoff say into a phone, close and distant all the same, like it’s here but also from another room. “Little alpha kid, all… all messed up. Jack? What should I do?”

“So,” a tinny voice says, “don’t you fucking dare try hold him down.”

It’d be funny, how far away Geoff and the other one jump, if Jeremy weren’t yearning to be anchored by anything at all.

 


	2. odds are we'll be alright

 

They’re pack, and that’s what kills him a little. You don’t fuck with pack. He’d take back what he did if he could, maybe. Probably. Well, no.

The one called Gavin arrives late and is entirely unconcerned about it. He’s an omega in all the ways Michael isn’t, and climbs into Jeremy’s lap intently.

“Hello, boy,” he says, wide eyed and blinking. “Hi.”                                                      

Jeremy remembers a time when the greatest achievement he could think of was to be a safe place for Trevor or Matt to rest, and falls back into old habits a little too much.

“Oh,” Gavin breathes out with a sigh, while Jeremy shifts to ensure Gavin is comfortable. “Oh, lovely boy.”

Yeah, he’s fucked. They’re pack, and that’s not something he gets to have, not for long.

“You’ve been on your own a while, huh?” Gavin asks, almost gentle, if he weren’t taking such a hold of Jeremy’s face. Jeremy has enough room to nod before he looks away.

“So, uh-” Gavin says.

“We’re taking him home, right?” Gavin says.

If the noise Geoff makes is priceless, the one Ryan makes is frankly a dream.

 

*

 

Trevor’s the best of them.

Matt thinks that’s bullshit except he doesn’t really, and also Matt thinks donuts are a viable food group, so.

Jeremy only knows he’d die for either of them on a word.

Trevor is the best of them. So Trevor takes charge.

Because he’s omega people are confused.

Their fucking loss, Jeremy thinks, and never regrets it.

 

*

 

There’s only the two of them in the car, and Jack is big in a way that should be intimidating but isn’t. Bigger than any beta Jeremy’s known, but god knows managing this lot must be a task and a half.

He keeps his eyes on the road, which is reassuring.

“You don’t know me,” Jeremy says, as reasonably as he possibly can.

“Nope.”

“And you’re taking me home anyway.”

“Yeah,” Jack says, utterly at peace. “Our omegas imprinted on you or some shit, so we should probably talk that out over food.” The first signs of hesitation. “Only- look, only if you’re okay with that.”

Jeremy really doesn’t know if Jack knows how long it’s been since he’s had a square meal, or he’s just being an asshole.

“Sure.”

Jack looks sideways.

“You weren’t alone the whole time, were you?”

And Jeremy, right there, almost loses his cool and does something fucking stupid, because he’s the piece of shit that let them down but like hell anyone else gets to talk about them. _Almost_ being the key word.

“No, sir.” Jeremy says.

Jack almost winces.

Almost being the key word, or whatever.

It’s a damn long car ride.

 

*

 

Michael and Gavin accost him the moment he walks across the threshold, for which he is infinitely fucking grateful. He knows where he is with omegas. There to please, if he can.

They want him to see each and every room, apparently, Michael loudly protesting the entire way. Jeremy’s not sure against what, since Michael’s mostly leading the way, but okay. Gavin laughs with his whole body and when he turns back at Jeremy he winks.

“We saw you first, so we get you.”

“I saw him first,” Michael says, “fuck you.”

“ _We_ saw y-”

The situation kind of devolves from there.

While they’re on the floor in a mess of limbs, Jeremy takes a chance to look around and maybe not whine embarrassingly in assent like he wants to. It’s big, but not overwhelmingly so. It has all the little hallmarks of a home.

When a door slams halfway down the corridor he’s covering both of them with his body as best he can before thought happens at all.

“Lovely little Jeremy,” Gavin says after a while, gentle but like it’s the simplest fact in the world. “You’re safe, here.”

“And we have video games,” Michael adds helpfully.

They do, it turns out, have a whole lot of video games.

They’re also _terrible_ at them.

 

*

 

If you asked he’d be a liar to say he wasn’t expecting it, but Jeremy goes down to the kitchen anyway and pokes around to see if a grilled cheese would be pushing his luck over the edge.

Ryan’s there.

Jeremy is relatively sure his name was Ryan.

The alpha manages to take up a whole lot of space without actually shoving Jeremy against anything. That’s considerate, at least for any light sleepers in the house.

 “Hey-o,” Jeremy says, because anything Trevor ever taught him about self-preservation went out the window a while ago.

 Ryan doesn’t seem to know what to do with that. He makes a valiant effort, though.

“You know you don’t just walk into this.” He says, letting Jeremy down kind enough that it has to be all for show, everything about him screaming alpha. “You're not pack.”

Here’s the thing – Jeremy will take a lot and he knows it. He’ll make fucking seven series and a movie out of the bullshit that is his life because you gotta laugh if you don’t want to cry. But occasionally he reaches his limit. Every now and again.

Unfortunately for Ryan, that’s now.

“No, I’m fucking not, but where were _you_ ,” he snarls, and Ryan’s whole stance shifts.

“Where were you? Geoff? Even Jack, fuck?” He’s being unfair but he can’t stop. “I was just there. But I fucking helped, and he called the shots the whole way, so fuck you. He called the shots.”

“Why?” Ryan asks, and Jeremy would literally prefer anything. He hates it because the answer is easy. The answer is Trevor, the answer is Matt, the answer is why on earth not.

But fuck that.

“Fuck that,” he tells Ryan, firm even though Ryan moves like the alphas they taught them about in school, moves like he’s certain. Jeremy is far from certain, but he’s a whole lot longer away from backing down.

“Okay,” Ryan says softly.

It’s not – it’s never that easy. It can’t be that easy.

It can't be this easy and he's going to ruin the first good thing he's had going since fucking forever.

“I do know my place,” Jeremy promises eventually, because ‘please keep me’ is just a little too pathetic for this late at night.

Ryan keeps his distance but his low rumble carries.

“Tomorrow,” he says carefully, “I’m getting Jack, so we three can discuss what it is you think that means.”

 

 


	3. a town that's big enough

 

He wakes slowly, which hasn’t happened in a while.

They’re oddly nested in blankets, and he can’t tell whose bed it is. Michael’s tucked against his side and Gavin, surprising no one, has clambered on top of Jeremy in his sleep. Jeremy isn’t sure he’s ever been clung to with quite so many limbs before.

He wakes slowly, because everything is warm and soft.

That’s a hell of a thing.

“Hey,” Michael says lazily.

“Hey,” Jeremy says.

Gavin makes a barely coherent sound and wriggles, and Jeremy pets his hair.

“So,” Michael says slyly, grinning as his hand slips under Jeremy’s shirt. “Gavin, he likes mornings. And he likes it a little more forceful.”

Gavin makes another incoherent noise, with a lot more intent.

He hesitates, still, but given the way Gavin weighs approximately nothing when Jeremy flips them and laughs with pure startled delight, Jeremy thinks a little more forceful is something he can provide.

He knows he’ll try to take the time, as the weekend stretches out. He’ll take the time to learn the little things you can take away and remember, like how Gavin owns too many shoes for any one human being and how Michael’s tidy and will enforce it. How much pleasure Geoff gets just from cooking for them, swearing almost constantly to mask the fondness slipping into his voice when he looks over. How Jack somehow, miraculously, has an eye on everyone all at once. He’ll studiously avoid Ryan, who to his surprise will let him be, even as he watches thoughtfully and sips a diet coke they either have an entire basement for or Ryan is capable of spawning from the fucking ether. Jeremy’s money is on the second option.

Right now, though, in this moment. In this moment he has Michael murmuring hints in his ear and Gavin bracketed beneath him and laughing as he’s kissed.

Anyway, so that’s a hell of a thing.

 

*

 

“ _Matthew_ ,” Jeremy whines, and hides his face. He thinks he maybe has a type. He’s pretty sure it’s going to be the death of him.

Matt considers for a second. “Nah,” he says. “You’re cuter when you work for it.”

Jeremy has one court of appeal left but Trevor seems far too amused by the exchange.

Trevor raises an eyebrow. “You heard the man.”

If Jeremy nips and bites a little harder at Trevor’s neck for that, well, no one ever said he wasn’t petty. He won’t do anything about the problem of the clothes they’re both still wearing, though, until Matt gives the go ahead.

 

*

 

Since Geoff somewhat benevolently rules over the household like the entire thing was forced on him, the asshole, Jeremy supposes the place is his. So he tells Geoff first, because he ought to know.

Which is a lie; he tells Geoff first because if he’s going to get turned out he wants it to happen sooner rather than later, and he doesn’t want Gavin to be there for it.

“We were all real close as kids, then through a couple of homes in our teens. Until people worked out I wasn’t maybe what they thought I was.” Jeremy half-smiles. “Matt used to joke that I was the best beta he never knew.”

That’s not the story.

“We did good for a while.” Jeremy lets a little of the pride into his voice. “Two states over before they even _started_ looking.”

That’s not the story, either.

“They were going to separate us.”

“So we ran.”

There it is.

“Oh, jesus _fucking christ,_ ” Geoff says fervently, but he’s not kicking Jeremy out quite yet so Jeremy will take it. “But you-”

Jeremy shrugs. “Wrong side of eighteen, an alpha. Guess when they took them back they figured I can fend for myself.”

Jeremy's own heartrate turns traitor when Geoff pulls him close, but he reaches out anyway and bunches Geoff’s t-shirt in his hands while he hides his face.

“Would you be at all surprised,” Geoff says softly. “If I told you that Ryan is unnervingly good at finding people.”

“I mean,” Jeremy says after a moment. “I’d prefer if you didn’t. I have enough nightmares as it is.”

God, he likes being able to make Geoff laugh.

 

*

 

“Ryan said maybe we should talk,” Jack starts, and here’s the thing.

The thing is Jeremy had really truly thought he could get away with not having this conversation.

He maybe sort of bolts. A little bit.

 

*

 

For take number two Jack conveniently appears in the kitchen doorway, the only door to the room, and just passively doesn’t leave. Fantastic.

Jeremy’s worked out that Jack is Geoff’s second, which his brain keeps desperately trying to tell him is Ryan’s role by right. He’s not sure how that works, but clearly they make it work. He’s a little bit pleased just on principle. But then, he’s known this wasn’t a conventional pack ever since he walked in to waffles already made by Geoff, looking slightly harangued in a “Kiss the Geoff” apron, while Michael proceeded to take loud charge of everyone’s breakfast conversation.

It’s not that he hasn’t thought about where he might fit. Lowest rung, but that could be okay, so long as they let him crawl into Michael and Gavin’s bed at the end of the day. Maybe Ryan’s on occasion, or even Geoff’s, if they have any interest and do that sort of thing. Unconventional pack, after all. So long as he can join in the stupid jokes and stupider pranks and be close to people who care about each other as much as he’s seen under this roof.

Jack is still there.

“I'm sorry,” Jeremy says. “For before.”

Jack shrugs and says “eh,” without seeking any further gesture of appeasement, and Jeremy knows his own experience is stilted but this isn’t how packs _work_. Beta or not, Jack is second. And Jeremy has been disrespectful.

“Can I ask you three questions?” Jack asks.

“One,” Jeremy counts off, on autopilot, because he’s also an asshole.

Jack grins. “Okay, four questions.”

“Shoot.”

“You know the boys want you to stay, right?”

Oh, Jack’s a bastard.

“You have Geoff.” Jeremy says after a pause, and nearly chokes on it anyway. “And- and Ryan, if Geoff’s not here.”

Jack nods in mild acknowledgement of two factual statements, but he’s not getting what Jeremy means.

“You don’t _need_ me,” he says plaintively.

Jack looks to the ceiling. Divine intervention does not occur.

“No,” Jack says, “Probably not. But we all want you.”

“Question three,” Jack continues. “You know Geoff thinks you’re the fucking second coming, right? And since you kicked his ass Ryan’s been pretty much in agreement.”

Jeremy has kicked no one’s ass this whole time and would like that on the record.

“Question four,” Jack says, while Jeremy remembers piecemeal how to breathe. “This is the kicker, because I’m going to need you to answer it. So, question four. How do you feel about us?”

Jeremy realises Jack stepped away to clear the way to the door a good few minutes ago, and genuinely looks nervous.

Oh.

 


	4. i'll see you in the future when we're older

 

They grow up together.

Together, they make it long enough to grow up.

It’s really pretty simple when you boil it down to the things that actually matter.

 

*

 

Trevor arrives as a thundercloud on a sunny day, and then unapologetically makes Jeremy carry half his books to class. Neither of them tough it out long enough to graduate, but Jeremy thinks Trevor should’ve. He’s the cleverest person Jeremy knows. He’s also got enough natural grace and charm to fit in seamlessly, if he ever stopped taking the world apart and finding it wanting, far too bitter already for a kid their age.

Matt comes from South Carolina and doesn’t like to talk about anything that happened there. He doesn’t really like to be touched. That’s not taken kindly, in an omega.

“We can explain,” Jeremy suggests, one of the times they skip out on three days of school and just hike out somewhere they can be alone, regardless of how they’re going to get their asses handed to them eventually.

“Who have we got to explain to?” Trevor asks tightly, and he has a point. Matt shifts, restless and dreaming, and they both freeze.

It’s a false alarm, this time.

“If they were going to look after us,” Trevor says, laying back on the grass to glare at the sky, and presumably everyone below it. “They’d have tried by now. So we look after each other.”

“Yes,” Jeremy says, unhesitating.

“And if I find out who,” Trevor says, glancing at Matt, “will you do it?”

Jeremy is twelve, and he’s never even seen a dead body.

“Yeah,” he promises, without hesitating. They look after each other.

 

*

 

Jeremy is either a jovial or a slightly belligerent drunk, and usually he’s both.

If Michael weren’t passed out in the master bedroom and Gavin out of the country, he wouldn’t be doing this alone. Fortunately, Ryan apparently never sleeps.

“Hi,” he says, and clearly enjoys Jeremy jumping.

“You,” Jeremy says at him accusingly, pointing first at the front door then himself. “Just let me walk in. J- just walk on right in.”

“Yeah,” Ryan agrees. “We did that. Having second thoughts?”

It’s a loaded question and not an unfair one. It’s only been a week, but he’s had moments. Gavin addressed it with all his usual tact just before departing, clearly antsy about something.

“He goes every month or whatever,” Michael had said carelessly. “Fucks off and checks Dan is still alive and then misses us.”

“I don’t,” Gavin said, affronted, and Michael honest to god sticks out his tongue.

“You’re the prick fucking off in Jeremy’s first month. So shut up.”

Then Gavin had lit up in a way that had Geoff groaning already, and deposited whatever it was he’d snuck into the house in his hoodie into Jeremy’s hands.

“You can’t run off,” he said victoriously. “Because you need to feed him. And stuff.”

“You little shit,” Michael had said, clearly impressed.

The bundle of fur moves and then yawns at Jeremy. Jeremy calls him Scooter, and loves him immediately.

 

*

 

At fifteen, Jeremy drops out and works for a pizza place until he can afford tickets for all three of them, and they get the hell out.

It’s not pack, but they get out and they share one decent jacket between them, subsist mostly on sugar, and Trevor nearly always has a plan. Matt keeps them gentle.

They’re not pack, except for all the things that actually matter.

 

*

 

When Geoff stumbles out sleep-hazy and wearing only underwear and a truly fucking hideous t-shirt Michael picked up in the airport in Jersey because it was the worst thing he’d ever seen, Geoff finds Scooter asleep on the couch. Jeremy is as well, and half-hugging a bottle of jager.

“It’s 4am,” Geoff says, “Haywood, you absolute fucking lunatic.”

Ryan doesn’t look up from his laptop, but does nod as Geoff finds enough unoccupied space on the couch to settle in. He takes a look at Ryan’s screen then rapidly decides he doesn’t want to know.

“Kid got chatty,” Ryan says suddenly.

Geoff isn’t sure he knows what he’s referring to at first.

“He doesn’t know why they left,” Ryan says. Doesn’t look away from the screen. “Upped and went in the night. I can check some things, see if there’s any-”

“He have any thoughts about that?” Geoff asks.

Ryan ignores the real question. “Maybe,” he says, “One… if he thought they were protected. If he thought it was a good deal.”

“Or something else worth protecting,” Ryan adds.

“That one," Ryan also adds, gesturing at Jeremy, "-couldn’t for the life of him think what it could possibly be."

Geoff’s fingers tighten in Jeremy’s hair, but not enough to wake him.

 

 *

 

There are things that are actually important, and then there’s the way Matt is looking at him when they leave Jeremy sleeping, which isn’t, except it fucking hurts.

“You’re smart, Trevor,” Matt says tiredly. “This isn’t smart.”

“Then go back inside and wake him up.” Trevor says. It’s cruel and it works.

They look after each other.

God, it fucking sucks.

 


	5. and most of the days we were searching for ways to get up and get out

 

There’s an Alpha, capitalisation intended, in their kitchen and it’s not Geoff, which Jeremy knows because of the distinct lack of tattoos and also practically everything else about him. Gavin hurtles on in but Jeremy figures he’ll personally elect to loiter in the hall until Geoff turns up.

Expanding a pack isn’t always taken well by the neighbours.

Geoff strolls in with Michael, who takes one look at the man, reaches his hand out, is given 20 bucks and walks straight back out grinning.

Geoff sighs. “Really?”

“Really,” the man says. “Hey, Gav, want to go help him carry the bevs?”

As Gavin leaves is a fantastically inopportune time for Jeremy realise that as big as Geoff is, this guy is bigger.

“Okay,” Geoff says, pouring water for himself and drinks for the other two men at the table. It’s not even noon yet. “Oh, and Ryan’s gone for a jog. Like, a two-hour jog, or whatever.”

“Shit,” the guy says. “Talk to me.”

“I want to talk to you, Burnie,” Geoff says, “About cashing in on a favour.”

“Ah,” says Burnie.

“We’re looking for some kids that might have got themselves in some trouble.”

“I don’t kidnap for your harem anymore,” Burnie says like it’s an old joke, and Geoff gives him the finger.

“Just-” Jeremy says, then shuts up. They both look at him. “Just if I could send them a message, or something. They know they don’t have to send anything back if they don’t want to.”

Burnie’s face has softened. “Omega kids?” he asks Geoff.

“Yup. No need to rile anyone up. Just – any new names in the last couple of months.”

Burnie sighs. “Hey, I can ask.”

“Ask Joel what he’s heard,” Geoff says. He pats Jeremy on the knee. “Joel,” he confides, “is shady as _dicks_.”

Jeremy pats Geoff’s hand right back. “Well, that’s incredibly reassuring.”

Burnie absolutely roars laughing. “Oh man,” he says, “oh, keep him.”

 

*

 

“You eat things and put videos of it on the internet for _work._ ”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Gavin says. “We do way stupider things than that and then put videos of it on the internet for work.”

“For _work_.”

“If I give you ten bucks right now what would you eat in front of the whole internet, Jeremy?”

“Gavin if you give me ten bucks right now, I will put literally anything in my mouth.”

Michael walks in, takes a look at Jack wheezing with laughter hard enough that his glasses have come off, and walks right out again.

“Ryan! Hey! Come look, Jeremy just broke Gavin!”

 

*

 

Geoff catches Burnie in the driveway. He isn’t entirely sure how to put it. “If the kids show up,” he says. “And if they’re willing to come here, it’d be better.”

“Because Haywood’s background search has him taking a two-hour jog to run it off?”

“Because if he finds out who had these kids before us he’s going to find out where they live, take Michael, and burn it to the fucking ground with those pieces of shit still inside.” Geoff says. “So yeah, that.”

 

*

 

“Michael?”

Michael has a Gavin on his chest. That this is not unusual to wake to is probably indicative of the terrible choices Michael has made in life. “I swear to Christ, Gav. Go the fuck to sleep.”

“Where’s Jeremy?”

Michael thinks about it. Jeremy’s been moving around about more, seeking different people out on different nights. He doesn’t seem to want his own bed to himself, and definitely not a room. “Geoff’s room.”

“Oh. Michael, is he doing the weird sleeping at the foot of the bed thing again, Michael?”

“You’re going to be sleeping on the pavement in a second because I’m going to throw you out a window.” Michael says, moving only enough to imply he’ll follow through and dislodging Gavin.

“But Michael-” He’s like human furnace and if he doesn’t get down here in a second Michael’s going to have to locate another blanket.

“…Geoff won’t let him sleep on the fucking floor, Gav.”

“Thanks, Michael.”

“We’re still Li'l J's favourites,” he says, and feels Gavin smile.

 

*

 

It’s mentioned once and only once.

“You have some weird habits, Li'l J.”

Jeremy’s car onscreen spins sideways, and he loses three places in the ranking, but doesn’t fall out of the race.

“I know,” he says. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Jack says. “You had shitty pack before. You’ll unlearn a lot of it.”

“They weren’t really pack. Not mine, anyway.” Then clarifies. “The shitty ones, I mean.”

“Cool,” Michael says. “Hey, shut up Jack, it’s cool that there’s nothing to miss. I didn’t have pack before, except like family stuff. Gav had whatever the fuck it is they do over in England. Ryan had shitty pack too, right?”

“Yeah,” Jack says, soft.

“And you met Burnie,” Gavin says.

Jeremy is not going to blush, because he’s a grown goddamn adult man, even though he’s not racing like one right now.

“He… and Geoff? Or-”

“We don’t ever speculate about whatever the hell Geoff was up to at our age, because if you get too curious about how the five horsemen of the apocalypse sorted their shit out without murdering each other for twenty years, then Gus climbs down your chimney at night and smothers you in your sleep,” Michael informs him.

“By then you kind of want someone too,” Gavin adds. “The mental images have scarred better men for life.”

“Dinner!” Geoff calls out. “Wait, what the fuck is so funny?”

 

*

 

When Jeremy sheepishly brings home two further kittens and disappears into the lads’ room to argue with them over names, Geoff lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding and goes to find Ryan and wrestle his laptop away so his lap can be full of Geoff instead.

It’s got to be Ryan, because he won’t have to explain all of it. They’re not the same, have never been afraid of the same things. Geoff knows Ryan still struggles with the thought that he might do something he doesn’t mean to, if Jack prods the bear or the boys cross a line. Geoff’s never worried about that.

Geoff is afraid in the same ways he sees Jeremy is, of finding family and then not being strong enough to protect it.

He asks Ryan, because Ryan will hold back the least.

“Hey,” he says. “Am I being selfish?”

Ryan doesn’t sugar-coat it at all. “No,” he says, “You’re an old man, and you’re setting things up so they’ll be okay for a long time.”

Geoff nods just a fraction, then wanders off to find Jack, who will sugar-coat it, and who never calls him an old man.

 

*

 

Burnie arrives at 5am in the goddamn morning, in a relatively beat-up cab. With or without coffee this does surprise Geoff just a little because he’s fairly sure Burnie would marry that Tesla if it were remotely legal to do so, or if Ashley weren’t a fucking goddess.

To Burnie’s credit, the first thing he says is “they’re in the back,” and “don’t send anyone but the friend.”

After that, however, he shoves a finger angrily into Geoff’s chest and raises the volume. Ryan, emerging first, does a fairly admirable job of hanging over Geoff’s shoulder but pretending like he isn’t a half inch from tackling Burnie to the ground if he tries anything. Jack doesn’t even try pretending a damn thing.

“A favour,” Burnie says, as the two of them seem to satisfy themselves that his ire is directed elsewhere. “As in one, the singular. This is a lot of favours.” His phone rings and he swears. “This is- so fuck it, now I have to go post Joel’s bail. A metric _fuckton_ of favours, Ramsey.”

He has an uber lined up, because of course he does, and leaves Geoff to deal with the cab fare.

 

*

 

Matt doesn’t hugely care for being touched, most of the time. He presents too early to have as much choice in that as he’d like.

First time Jeremy tells him he’s gonna deck the next guy brushes too close in the corridor, Matt laughs because it’s funny.

Second time, Jeremy’s still wearing the bruises from the first time, and Matt tries to slow the nosebleed in a dingy highschool bathroom cubicle.

“Idiot,” he says.

“Yup,” Jeremy says, cheerful.

One of them has a fairly nasty accident next time there’s a game, which is understating it. Jeremy was a footballer for a while there.

Trevor corners him maybe a day later, smile sharp as a knife.

“We okay?”

Jeremy let Matt shove toilet paper ineffectively at his face for at least half an hour because he only knows how to do things head-on. Trevor thinks bigger.

“Yeah,” he says. “We’re pretty okay.”

 


	6. i'll keep mine and you keep yours

 

Michael corners him, probably four shots in. He looks so goddamn _young._

“So Ryan finds these omegas,” he says. Geoff did not want to do this tonight.

“And Ryan finds these omegas, means Jeremy’s gonna go with them.”

Geoff has only been sober three months, at a guess. So he notices the fifth shot tucked back on the counter, and that the bottle disappears when he turns his eyes away.

These fucking kids of his. Whatever he did in a past life to hope to deserve to find them. What was it, Jeremy said, that one time-

Michael looks at him like he’s vaguely concerned he’s had a stroke. “Geoff, the fuck?”

“Yeah, that’s kinda Jeremy’s call,” Geoff says instead.

Geoff’s worked on a lot of assumptions a long time and Michael has always been best at showing him up, omega or not, or probably especially so. He’d always assumed certain things. Gavin is mercurially brilliant, but he’ll always have that touch of wanderlust. Except, hypothetically, if it worked for him and Jack; and if now there’s maybe Jeremy.

“Okay,” Michael says calmly. “You get to explain that to Gavin.”

Geoff crawls into Jack’s bed. He didn’t want to do this tonight.

“We did okay,” he asks eventually, staring at the ceiling. “Between us. This long.”

“Yes,” Jack says, “Also, if my vote counts, that’s a good idea.”

“You fucking show-off.”

 

*

 

Jeremy emerges as Burnie is leaving. His pyjamas are designed for someone about a foot taller.

“Is that-”

“Geoff, _is that-_ ”

He doesn’t let any of them except Jack near, and sets something up with an air mattress and a stupid foam bedroll in the shed. They have to walk through part of the house to get there, though.

Walking through the taller omega missteps, and Gavin, who has never restrained from plastering himself across anything with a pulse that’s shown affection back in his entire life, steps forward.

“No,” Jeremy barks out. He’s got his arm around the other one and doesn’t turn his eyes away or anywhere in Gavin’s direction, but he points.

Gavin steps back.

“Sorry,” the omega says, tugging his hair back from his face. “Not so much with the- sorry.”

He follows Jeremy’s footsteps like a ghost the rest of the way out.

 

*

 

These are things Trevor never means to say out loud, but concussion can be a bitch like that.

“Just a pride thing,” he slurs, being laid down somewhere vaguely comfortable. “I’ve got too much of a mouth on me and Matt doesn’t give a fuck.”

“You took their toys,” Trevor adds wryly. “It was just a pride thing.”

Trevor has a certain pride of his own in saying the right thing at the right time. This is very much and completely not the right thing.

“I did this?” Jeremy asks, voice small, shaking into what grip Trevor can get at him.

Matt, the minor miracle worker that he is, steps in.

“No,” he says, pushing just a little on Jeremy’s shoulders until Trevor has him held close.

“You're the only one who ever fucking tried to stop it,” Trevor says fiercely. “And you pissed them off because you almost did.”

Jeremy runs his fingers feather-light over Trevor’s bruises like he can make them disappear by force of will, but he doesn’t break down and tear up until they smile conspiratorially and trap him between them.

“Worth it,” Matt says.

“Yeah,” Trevor says. “You’re the best of us.”

 

*

 

A few days after Jeremy goes – Gavin doesn’t like to use the word ‘lose’, but Michael thinks it’s a relatively fitting summary of their complete fuck up to say they lost him if he’s being honest – he finds Ryan in the basement.

Ryan tinkering in the basement is not unusual. Ryan jammed in the tiny space between the two cabinets is.

“Rye-”

Ryan is very still, and very quiet.

“-I scared him away.”

He says it and he sounds broken in a way that’s just bone-deep wrong.

“Gav,” Michael says with increasing alarm. “Mother _fucker,_ Gavin get _down here._ ”

 

*

 

The situation that unfolds, Jack knows he could have and should have predicted. That it should unfold this early and over cereal is unforeseen.

That is not an excuse.

Jeremy and the dark-eyed omega, Trevor, they’ve clearly come in early to grab a meal before anyone else. Three things go wrong at the exact same time.

One. Michael does something as mundane as reach for a bowl. He fucks that right up.

Two. A bowl breaks within Jeremy’s vicinity, and on instinct that clearly is either borrowed or hard-earned Trevor throws a punch. At the closest thing, that being Michael.

Three. Ryan Haywood is in the room.

The thing is, Jack knows full well Ryan has been challenged before and been able to back down from it. He’s never, to Jack’s knowledge, been challenged with such an iced-over brand of disdain.

“Is there a problem?” Ryan asks, as close to giving an out as he’s probably going to get.

“I’ll make it easy for you,” Trevor says. “Yes.”

Jeremy moves between them fast enough to let everyone in the room know that Trevor knows exactly what the fuck he’s doing, and also that if there’s a hit going to get taken here Jeremy is set on taking it and you probably couldn’t drag him away from that conviction with wild horses.

Ryan doesn’t move.

In that fragile moment, Geoff enters, and Jeremy has Trevor out the door before anyone can react.

“Fuck,” Michael says.

“I– I didn’t-” Ryan sounds a little lost.

“Fuck,” Michael says, for emphasis. “Oh, _fuck_.”

 


	7. the kids are alright

 

Jeremy bundles them just far enough that he’s fairly sure they’re out of territory and then a little bit further until he finds a motel room he can afford with whatever is in his pocket. While he’s doing his best to charm the girl at the desk into giving them a room with two beds, Matt’s eying Trevor.

“You did that on purpose.”

“How many years, trying to get the fuck away from all of that?” Trevor snaps back. “And he walks right back in. He walks right back in the second we-”

“The second we did what?” Matt asks, placid enough. “Hey, just for fun, finish that sentence.”

“Of course I fucking did it on purpose.” Trevor bites out, and cuts off whatever else he meant to say because Jeremy has come back, blushing and successful.

Matt doesn’t give a shit.

“And how do you feel about that?”

Trevor storms off, and Jeremy looks concerned until Matt taps one finger to Jeremy’s cheek.

Matt’s not hugely a fan of being touched, but he’s omega to the bone and the best thing about both of those things is that he and Jeremy have had more than half their lifetimes to muddle through as best they can. Jeremy holds on to the sides of the mattress to ensure he stays still while Matt looms and traces shapes on his chest, up to his neck.

Every now and again, he’ll brush a thumb to Jeremy’s lower lip, and Jeremy presses a kiss to it.

“You’re here,” Matt says.

“I’m here.”

Trevor needs some time to sulk, but they’re both pretty sure he’ll come around just about when Matt is ready to hand Jeremy off to something a little more frantic, but equally reassuring.

 

*

 

Gavin runs to Dan to blow shit up for a good week longer than usual. For the entire time he’s gone Michael treats any given spoken word as an invitation to an argument. Ryan isn’t hiding under furniture anymore but occasionally gives the impression he’s right on the brink of it, while Geoff drinks again, once, and is reminded why he doesn’t do that anymore.

Jack runs himself ragged keeping the dull fundamentals of life running until they all notice, and remember that things like laundry exist.

Gavin and Michael are the ones to get the exact same text message at the exact same time.

Gavin squawks loud enough to make the entire house pay attention, and stumbles through a bunch of sounds that, while very expressive, probably aren’t words in any actual language until he gets to the one that counts.

“Jeremy!” he says, eyes huge.

 

*

 

“Were you happy?” Trevor asks.

They’ve made whole lot of stupid promises to each other over the years, Jeremy thinks. The stupidest was probably never to lie.

“I was,” he says, and shifts until Trevor’s caged in his arms, shielded from anything. “But not at the cost of you.”

“Because they were good.”

Jeremy thinks about a call for an all-house Mario Party at 3am just because someone had a bad dream, and nods. “They were good.”

“Bullshit,” Matt calls out from across the room, trying to sound bored rather than encouraging, and failing. “Seemed like assholes.”

“They were assholes,” Jeremy corrects himself, laughing. “But they looked after each other.”

“Oh,” Trevor says, quiet.

“I was thinking-” Trevor says.

 

*

 

Geoff chooses to limit numbers, and he and Jack go to some sort of public park Gavin made directions for in Geoff’s phone. Jeremy is there sitting on a low brick wall and swinging his legs like a kid.

When they get there he jumps down though, and heads straight over. He heads straight over and takes Geoff’s hands and puts one at his own throat right on the pulse and one at his chest.

“I meant to stay, if it worked out, I didn’t lie about-” Jeremy starts, pressing Geoff’s hands tight enough to probably hurt like he’s forgotten he was Geoff’s, even just for a time, and he’d know Jeremy’s heartbeat from across a room. “I promise I wasn’t lying.”

“Yeah,” Geoff says, entirely insufficient, and can feel Jack’s judgement.

“I was thinking – hoping, if you wanted,” Jeremy says. “If I could be yours and Jack’s and Ryan’s and, uh, always theirs,” he doesn’t quite manage Michael and Gavin’s names, but Geoff can understand a stumble at the final hurdle. Always the hardest. “Again. If you wanted.”

Geoff nods, minutely.

Jeremy isn’t finished. “Trevor wants to-” he stops and corrects himself. “Trevor’s going away to college, and I know what they think about omegas but anyone who has half a brain cell between them will take him. I don’t know what Matt wants to do and I’ll keep asking until I do.” He inhales briefly. “I won’t come back if I’m not allowed to see them.”

“Jack,” Geoff says very calmly. “Ryan lied, I’m the worst fucking person in the world.”

“Not the worst.” Jack says. “I mean, not the best, but.”

“I didn’t ask directly but it was implied.” Geoff whines.

Geoff’s hands are still where Jeremy put them and they are gentle and that is reassuring in and of itself. “Okay,” Jeremy says slowly, “we are having two different conversations.”

Geoff lets go only enough to pull Jeremy to him and kiss right where his hand has left a slight print against Jeremy’s throat. “Come home,” he says. “Bring your friends, or don’t and go see them, whatever you want.”

“They’re their own first,” Jeremy says, muffled in Geoff’s shoulder and a good ten years of revelations ahead of where Geoff was at his age. “But I’ll learn from you and Ryan and I’ll do better. I’ll do better and take care of them.”

“Kid,” Geoff says firmly, “As far as I can see, you did fucking incredible.”

 

*

 

 

Jeremy is Matt and Trevor’s, no argument, but he’s also pack.

They work it out.

Trevor goes off to school but comes back whenever he can to monopolise Jeremy and generally just put them all in line better than Geoff manages even when he’s paying attention, mostly about things like groceries and taxes. After a bridging course he’s literally doing rocket science, and when anyone cracks a joke about an omega doing that Michael takes a huge amount of pleasure in punching them in the face.

Maybe also Gavin takes a huge amount of pleasure in Michael punching them in the face.

Okay, everyone does.

Jack, to everyone’s undue surprise, particularly enjoys it.

Ryan and Trevor make peace over a bizarre moment where they both know far too much about throwing knives. Jack renovates the spare room with single minded intent, proud of every coat of paint. Matt is oblivious to how fond they all are of him and is genuinely surprised when a fucking magical Minecraft build gets everyone’s attention.

Yeah, they work it out.

“So,” Geoff says late one night, late enough that apparently he has no filter.

“You and Michael,” he says, “When us old fucks are gone.”

Jeremy and Michael look at each other and both take a drink in solidarity.

“Well, yes to the question,” Jeremy says fondly. “But I reject the premise.”

“What he said,” Michael agrees.

These fucking kids.

 

 


	8. it wouldn't give us any closure

 

After the conversation with Geoff, Michael wakes with a countdown in the back of his mind, numbers ticking down to the moment he catches up with his own life and accepts he can’t just go do something unbelievably fucking stupid just because he wants to. It’s a small window, so he immediately searches out Ryan.

“We’re doing this,” he asks. “Right?”

Ryan slumps. “Burnie won’t give me an address.”

Michael grins. “I bet Burnie would give Gavin the address.”

They sit cross legged across the bed while Gavin fiddles with his phone and holds up an imperious finger. “Don’t rush me, this is a work of art.” Ryan snorts. “Seriously, Rye, you have to work up to it the right way.”

Michael grabs the phone out of his hands and reads the message back. “Hi Burnie,” he says, in the best british accent he can manage, which is no one's definition of good. “What’s your third favourite reptile?”

“Kill me,” Ryan says.

“I’m talking to Geoff,” Michael says.

“Or you could just ask Trevor,” says Trevor, from where he’s lounging in the doorway.

Trevor gives them an address.

It’s not actually that far, if you’re driving, which visibly cements Ryan’s intent. They pile into the car and are unsurprised to find Jeremy already in the back seat, fiddling with his jacket.

“How many? Do you think?” Ryan asks when they stall a little in traffic.

“Four or five,” Trevor says. “Unless they’ve found someone else to play with.”

Michael breaks the tension with a whisper that could travel down the street. “So you and I are gonna have to drag Ryan back to the car later, little guy, you know that right?”

“Got it, pal.” Jeremy stage-whispers back.

They go looking for a fight and they find one, Michael lobbing a brick through the window just to start things off, but it doesn’t pan out like that. It doesn’t pan out like that because they find a fight but they also find someone attempting to hide themselves in the bathroom, and if Michael and Ryan had never seen Trevor they might be more confused about just how quickly Jeremy loses his shit when he sees the omega, lean and dark haired and doe-eyed.

They drag Jeremy back to the car instead, which is good luck for the alpha Ryan knocked down a minute or so ago, and who was unfortunate enough to be closest to Jeremy.

 

*

 

Three days prior, Joel swings by with scraped knuckles and a manic smile to check on Matt, who he has apparently taken a shine to enough to check in on.

“No,” Geoff says pre-emptively. “No, no and no.”

“What? Hey, man. You found the other one in an alley.” Joel says, and Geoff is about 99% sure and 1% hopeful he’s being fucked with.

“Again, no,” he corrects, “Michael found him in an alley. And what Michael does in his own time is his business.”

“I-”

Matt ambles past still in pyjamas and holding an oversized cup of coffee. He blinks at them. Then he waves at Joel, a little half wave. Joel fucking giggles like a schoolgirl and returns the wave before Matt ambles on to the next room.

“Get out of my house,” Geoff says, and physically directs Joel the hell out of Geoff’s house.

“Jesus dicks,” Geoff informs empty air. “That was terrifying.”

 

*

 

Jack and Geoff have something they would like to talk about privately, in the living room.

“Great,” Matt says, locking eyes with Jeremy. “These conversations always end well.”

Jack is relaxed and Geoff seems twitchy, while Matt and Jeremy both enter the room and sit on the couch opposite like they have forgotten how sitting works.

“So before we start, I wanted- we’ve, for a while.” Geoff stops again, starts again. “We just needed to run the details past HR and make sure no one is getting a court order against them.”

Jeremy would be more worried if he couldn’t feel how worried Matt is next to him, and everything in him locks on to making that less.

“Great,” he says cheerily. “These conversations always end well.”

“Geoff,” Jack says gently.

“I’m fucking getting there, okay? You’re the one who-” Geoff shakes himself out of it. “Jack and I _both_ wanted to make sure you know everything is properly in writing and checked out, but also that none of all this-” he waves at the room in general, “-obligates you to anything. I don’t give a fuck if half the clothes this,” he jabs a finger at Jeremy, “green-haired idiot wears are Michael and Gavin’s because they like it when you do that, or if your man here eats all Ryan’s donuts until he whines like dicks about it, or the fact that you’re both here because actually every one of us wants you here-”

“Geoff,” Jack says, significantly less gently.

 “I would like to hire you,” Geoffrey Ramsey finishes all in a rush.

This is not how these conversations end.

“He is very grateful for the opportunity and would like to accept,” Matt says when Jeremy says nothing for way too long, reaching out to give Jeremy’s knee a brief squeeze. “Is there paperwork? I didn’t say this, but I forge his signature pretty good.”

Geoff looks at Jack. Jack looks at Geoff.

“Trying that again-” Jack says mildly.

Geoff points at Matt, right between the eyes, then at Jeremy, then back at Matt.

“This,” he says, gesturing widely at both, and there’s not much space between. “I would like to hire this.”

 

*

 

They come back late and when they drag themselves upstairs Gavin makes a split second decision to jump at Jeremy first, because he’s the worst bruised, cooing with concern and then surprise when Jeremy grips him with one arm at the waist and picks him up.

“Got in a fight,” Jeremy says, smiling giddily, blood singing at him to be good and be touched. “Gav, will you fuck me? Please?”

Michael laughs, fond and staccato and everything about it genuinely pleased with however this is going to turn out.

“Michael,” Gavin breathes, “Please take Lil J to fight people more often.”

“Nope,” Michael says cheerfully. The countdown in the back of his brain stops, right then, right there. Jeremy takes a moment to make eye contact, and Michael realises somehow he knows, and maybe also mourns just a little for how young Jeremy probably was for this kind of moment.

Maybe they’ll do okay, between them.

 

*

 

Michael and Ryan slink back in after their little joyride like they know they’re getting their asses kicked, which is good, because they are, but Geoff will let Jack do that and it will be worse because he’ll just tell them sadly how disappointed he is. It doesn’t look on paper like it would work, but give it a couple of days and it worms its way in there.

Geoff’s attention needs to be elsewhere because Jeremy and Trevor have entered, evidently wound tight and defiant, each holding a hand of the kid in the middle, who is gripping tight to them like they’re his lifelines.

“His name is Alfredo,” Jeremy says, utterly ready for a fight or to bare his neck, whatever works.

There isn’t a single version of how this goes that Geoff would ever give him either one.

“Okay,” Geoff says, soft. “Hey, Jack? I maybe make him something to eat and you explain how we’re assholes, but not the worst kind of assholes.”

 

*

 

It's arguable, of course. He hopes they can live up to it.

At the same time, Geoff can take a certain amount of pleasure in the fact he's played a part in making a place where Gavin and Michael can be incandescent just by nature, Jack and Ryan will know too much and either clash or tag-team for mostly all the best reasons, that Jeremy will always be enough of a gift that Matt and Trevor stay close and actually want to. That Alfredo, sweet as he is, wears shirts to match Trevor's almost the whole of the first week just to run a joke into the ground. That they have the opportunity to get to know him, if he chooses to stay.

A certain amount of pleasure but also a whole lot of reassurance.

Burnie calls.

"How is it going?"

This time Geoff gets to be just a little smug.

 


	9. it never feels out of place

 

Jeremy takes a lot of pride in learning what it is their omegas want, and otherwise letting himself be directed until he does.

Trevor is never difficult, mostly because Jeremy was always Trevor’s first, but also because Trevor and by extension Matt enjoy giving fairly detailed instructions. Trevor has as many moods as there are days in the year but Matt is always there to steady them, a softening presence from a fond distance.

Michael enjoys a tussle for the theoretical high ground, and Jeremy makes the mistake at first of letting him win it every time. Not that Michael doesn’t enjoy that, he’s content enough, but the day Jeremy figures it out and just hefts him bodily to the bed Michael fucking lights up.

Gavin likes a whole lot of close and everywhere. Jeremy ends up holding him above inconvenient furniture a lot, so that’s a thing. Gavin will ask possibly meaningful but more likely inane questions whenever Jeremy’s half out of his mind trying to keep them both feeling as good as they can, and too often Jeremy will answer far too honestly.

Alfredo is confusing, because he’s just so straight-up gentle. He’s not afraid to use his height though, hovering over Jeremy as he kisses the corner of Jeremy’s mouth like they’re still teens and have anything to be nervous about.

Except for how he flinches a second later, and Jeremy doesn’t know at what because he barely has his hands on him at all, but panics and speaks before his brain can rein in his mouth. “You’re okay, hit me,” he promises with the first solution that comes to mind, keeping his hands off and meaning it. “It’s okay, hit me the once, so you know you can whenever-”

Alfredo raises a hand and instead of the expected pats at his cheek.

“Fuck no.” He says.

“Yeah, no.” He says firmly.

He’ll tell on Jeremy later, because he’s sweet like that, and apologise in the same breath because he’s sweet like that. Jeremy doesn’t hold a grudge, and is wilfully unsure why anyone would want to seek him out to have a conversation about it.

 

*

 

They’re out having a perfectly normal conversation at a perfectly normal bar when someone stupid enough makes a crack about Geoff being any kind of Alpha by implying he gets on his knees for pack.

It would have been a worse mess if certain other people were there, but fortunately that isn’t the case.

Jeremy is halfway between two points; one being starting a fight he knows he could finish and the other deciding to demonstrate where control lies by dropping to his knees like Geoff pulled on his leash literally rather than metaphorically when he snaps for Jeremy to back down, whatever the fuck option illustrates the point to these assholes better. Luckily for everyone, Geoff has a better reaction.

“Sorry,” he says, sincerely, tilting his head a little, smiling a little. “No, I am, genuinely sorry that inside an hour this one,” his hands brush Jeremy’s shoulders, “is going to be fucking me through the mattress while you’ve got nothing but your dick and your hand.”

A perfectly normal night out.

Fistfight only narrowly avoided, Geoff still fidgets on the drive home.

“If I overstepped there-” Geoff starts apologetically when they pull up at the house.

It’s not that they haven’t had a thing, if you could even call it that. Less of thing and more like Jeremy coming to Geoff the once to admit he hasn’t been able to drag his eyes from Geoff’s hands for days like he's at confessional, though only if confessional generally ends up with Jeremy pressing desperately at Geoff’s thigh firmly between his legs, jeans still on and a little drunk on praise.

This time, Jeremy frees himself from the seatbelt and climbs over Geoff, growling against his neck.

“Goddamn,” Geoff says quietly.

“You’re Alpha,” Jeremy says roughly, meaningfully, still growling the words just a little. “You’re Alpha, we’ll do something else. I can-” He could count on one hand the things he wouldn’t offer up.

“Nah, I liked my suggestion,” Geoff says.

“I mean,” Geoff says, “you know, if you want to.”

“I never got laid in the back of the car my whole misspent youth,” Geoff says thoughtfully. “Which is a damn tragedy.”

In the end it’s challenge accepted, with the note that Geoff is a sneaky motherfucker.

 

*

 

If Jack’s first ‘we’re just having a chat, I promise’ over the something that Jeremy is insistent is in fact nothing which possibly happened with Alfredo can be described as painful, the one they have about being careful with Ryan is agonising.

The first is mostly painful because in Jeremy’s opinion, “wanted him to feel safe,” is a stone-cold close in terms of conversation and just really a piece of common sense. That it made Jack walk around like Jeremy had personally murdered puppies in front of him for the whole day is confusing nonsense.

He tells Matt this, and Matt tells him he’s an idiot, and Jeremy really can’t get anything else out of him.

The second chat only manages to trump that in awfulness because it involves the use of the terms ‘be careful’ and ‘mutually assured destruction’.

Jeremy thinks about Ryan, who wears dad jeans despite all their best efforts, and is sometimes slightly awkward when Jeremy and any of the lads show open affection like it’s a show he didn’t pay for and is afraid he’ll be kicked out of. Every now and then, usually when any of the omegas are in his arms - which is often - he forgets how to say words.

“Ryan’s not interested,” Jeremy says, an attempt at reassuring.

“And that’s the only question?” Jack fires back, which feels oddly weighted.

“Ryan has no interest-“

“Not to offend you,” Jack says, somewhat offensively, “But are you from another fucking planet?”

It’s kind of a blindside, but more importantly there’s something about his earnestness that hits at Jeremy.

“Okay,” Jeremy says and when Jack looks a little surprised he takes advantage of the moment and goes for the hug.

“Okay?” Jack asks, fond but suspicious, hugging back.

“If you say.” Jeremy says, simply, “I trust you. Obviously, I’ll be careful with him.”

Jeremy's impudence aside, Jack seems to be wrecked enough by the first bit to smile, then flee the room presumably to seek out Gavin or whoever he can find to talk about literally anything that isn’t that.

Jeremy trusts Jack with anything he has. Also, though, as far as Jeremy’s concerned, Ryan is a comforting force at his shoulder, a familiar face over breakfast, and innumerable other things. Maybe Ryan is interested, but until Ryan decides to say it Jeremy thinks that’s probably not the point, and none of Jeremy’s business.

 

*

 

Jeremy has theory about love. Or loving. Or whatever the best term is. He has a theory, okay, fuck you.

He’s heard people say that love can extend as far and as deep as you let it, but he thinks that’s not quite it. He’s probably told this to Trevor before, definitely to Matt, young enough that the concept seemed simple.

Jeremy is pretty sure his love extends as far and as deep as the people he loves permit it to and he got really undeservedly lucky here, because they all keep letting it and it’s working out pretty well right now.

 

 


	10. an orbit a little closer to the ground

 

Gavin has a game he likes to play. “A million dollars,” he says, bright eyed and genuinely interested. “But-”

It’s not usual, he knows, how he’s never felt the slightest want to be anything but omega. You’d have to explain to him why he might even want to.

Michael isn’t the same. Gavin knows he covers it up sometimes, spitting out _fuck you_ while laughing at the same time to hide up how he’s trying to make the whole world a marginally less shitty place for anyone who is his on some sort of alpha instinct he inherited from a previous life.

Michael is happy and knows who he is. He just has moments, sometimes.

Gavin mentions this to Jack once, wondering aloud if it’s why they work so well.

“Oh, fuck no,” Jack says, amused and indulgent. “You work well because you’re Gavin and he’s Michael.”

“A million dollars,” Gavin will say sweetly, “but you’re wanted by people you love and you make them happy and you’re safe. Wait, what?”

That usually ends the argument, and now as a bonus, it’ll make Alfredo smile.

 

*

 

They’re all children here, but children still working out what consequences can be tend to do things without thought. There are three of them, alpha kids. Sadly, Matt has money for lunch.

The short version is that they make a move, and Jeremy gets in the way of it.

The long version is that they’re all children but they hit like they mean it. The long version is Jeremy gives a few good solid swings and takes more than that until Matt decides it’s not worth it and gets between them, playing out what few gestures of appeasement he managed to pick up until now. He gets knocked down anyway.

Something Matt hates and is fond of about Jeremy is how he doesn’t even know he’s talented, whether he’s humming a new thing all his own or writing something he’ll hide from Trevor later until it’s coaxed out of him. Curled together on the grass and bruised to hell, Matt feels a strange urge to tell Jeremy so.

“If I could,” Jeremy says first, blood at his mouth and slightly dazed but present enough to know what he’s saying. “I’d do everything over so things like that and me aren’t needed.”

Matt grabs at Jeremy’s face until he has no choice but to look back. “Nope,” he says, “don’t even think it.”

Matt tells this story once and only once to Ryan, who is white-knuckled by the end. Matt’s yet to know Ryan well and they’re not really close but Ryan’s got a busted lip from beating on the people who hurt Trevor and hey, he doesn’t deserve to think he’s the only one who is afraid of being what he is.

 

*

 

Geoff misses them sometimes.

Geoff knows he misses them sometimes, but at other times can’t work out if he’s missing them or missing the feeling of being told his whole life what a pack can be and then fucking proving everyone wrong, for a good long time.

“What?” Gus asks, eating fries.

“Not even here,” Burnie sighs.

None of them were ever anything but Alpha to the bone and none of them gave an inch, and they fucking proved everyone wrong anyway.

“I’m just thinking,” Geoff says, and steals some fries. “We’ll always have Paris, that type of shit.”

“You dickhead,” Burnie says immensely fondly, and knowing exactly what Geoff means. He was the one who showed Geoff that movie. “We never went to Paris.”

Hullum turns up late, and they all toast to it, as usual until he’s arguing like they don’t know exactly when it was he decided to deign to join them.

 

*

 

“A million dollars,” Gavin asks all of them, genuinely innocent and genuinely too many bevs in. “But you have to switch.”

They glance around like some sort of lottery, and Jack either loses or surrenders.

“Switch how?”

“Swap how you are,” Gavin says.

It’s a big conversation to have so they don’t have it, and throw around dick jokes and a whole lot of innuendo until it goes away.

 

 

*

 

 

It doesn’t really go away. A few things happen.

It’s a stupidly inconvenient time and generally not the greatest place to say it, shoving laundry into the machine and forgetting about adding the softener, side by side. But it is what it is.

“- and I was, you know, that kind of whatever for you the whole time and still also-” Geoff ends up saying, fast and hard but tripping over it.

“I know,” Jack says, easy, and kisses his forehead.

Somewhere around the same time, Gavin tells Michael “you’ll be in charge one day,” soft and wondering, and gets pulled close and nuzzled for it.

“Don’t be fucking stupid,” Michael says, vaguely pleased, “Trevor will usurp us all and I won’t even complain.”

Somewhere else again, Ryan taps at the doorway even though it isn’t Jeremy’s room, and Jeremy smiles back. “What’s up?”

“I was informed,” he says awkwardly, “That it might be mutually assured destruction, or something.”

Ah.

Jeremy would not normally push the limits to this extent, but he also suspects that Ryan might be tied down in the same doubts he’s had a thousand times, and therefore grabs at Ryan’s shirt collar.

“How do you want me hurt?” he asks, like he's too scared to care. Ryan balks and Jeremy smiles immediately.

“See?” he says, a promise, bold and bright as dayrise, “We don’t have to be that unless we choose to.”

He’s got all the confidence and generosity of youth tempered with far too much experience, and it’s just what happens to be needed, though Ryan will probably never admit it.

 

*

 

“How do you do it?”

Geoff just shrugs.

“I don’t do shit. The kids figure it out, and they’re better than us, so they look after their own.”

It’s not an accusation. It could have been, five or however many years ago. But there is too much water under the bridge and he is just genuinely proud of what's his now.

They must have gotten soft, because they let him have it.

“I didn’t do shit,” he says quietly.

They look at him like he’s a liar but he smiles because he knows it’s true as surely as he knows Matt Hullum has gone a drink too far and this night is going to be a fun ride.

 

 


	11. we said crazy things

 

With this many of them in the house their heats come in strange patterns.

When Alfredo’s kicks in almost a week earlier than expected he hides it for longer than is a good idea because he doesn’t want to get in the way of the weekend trip they have planned, and things blow up as can be expected.

Which is to say, Alfredo locks himself in a downstairs room and apologises through the door until no one knows what to do.

Geoff is about to beg entry and probably say the wrong thing with the best of intentions when Jeremy catches his elbow.

“Matt’s got this.”

Matt has, in fact, got this. He also has nacho-flavoured doritos. He knocks because he’s a civilised human being, which is also why he offers Alfredo a dorito first thing when he opens the door.

“Cheese makes things better,” he says wisely, then looks at the packet with suspicion. “Or… chemicals that are like cheese.”

“I’m sorry,” Alfredo says, quiet.

“Nah,” Matt says. Alfredo’s feverish enough that he leans into him immediately, so presumably Matt’s presence at least takes the edge off it. Cool.

“Twenty whatever many years,” Matt says conversationally, because probably the first three or four were a free pass, “I got told that this,” he pats at Alfredo’s wrist where he’s running warm, “was the only time I’d ever be wanted.”

“I don’t regret that it happened,” Matt adds, and he doesn’t. “It was shit but then I met this alpha kid, right, five-foot nothing much and fucking fearless about being gentle. That thought never even occurred to him. So I wouldn’t trade it in, in case it means I wouldn’t have known to hold on to him come whatever.”

He takes a moment to offer doritos again. Alfredo takes one this time.

“Fearless about being gentle,” Alfredo says, a genuine smile to his voice, like he simply enjoys how the words fit together.

“Yeah,” Matt says. “That’s Jerem.” He thinks about it. “But you’ve got three alphas upstairs losing it a little bit over the thought of not making sure this is good for you, so you kind of have a whole array of options, if you want to take or leave any of them.”

Alfredo blushes like a choirboy who just realised he cussed in church, and with the slightly dawning joy that he’s going to get away with it.

Matt’s got this.

 

*

 

Jeremy asks, sweet and shy about it, if he’ll be tied down.

So, yeah. Geoff has to go walk that one off.

As it goes the lads close ranks and come the peak of Jeremy’s heat Gavin is a comfortingly ever-present thing, flitting around near Jeremy and about, everywhere at once. He pets at Jeremy consistently and surely he must know that he’s doing it. With his hands tied behind his back and cloth covering most of his view of the room Jeremy appreciates it.

“We can stop that here,” Michael says, fond and moving to pull the necktie that is currently moonlighting as a blindfold away, but Jeremy leans forwards blindly and hits lucky, face colliding with Michael’s wrist.

He kisses at the inside of Michael’s wrist first, tracing down until Michael can get a grip at his jaw.

“Thank you,” he says, “but no.”

“Christ, Li’l J,” Gavin says, and Jeremy thinks his heart is going to beat out of his chest, heat or not, if he says something so idly while still having his hands on Jeremy. “What can’t we do with you, eh?”

Jeremy probably realises he doesn’t want to answer that out loud about the same time Michael realises he doesn’t want to hear the answer. Whether or not Gavin realises either is his secret to keep.

“I found you,” Michael says fiercely, pulling him forward and close. In a moment he’ll have Jeremy’s hands free and take off the blindfold, but Jeremy doesn’t need to know that yet. “I was half crazy with it but you took me on and now I have you like this. Because I found you.”

Jeremy barely knows where he is, strung out on need, but he knows he wants to be there. He’s been suppressing his instincts on and off for a long time, with black market pills to help when he needed to. This is the first time since – a long time.

“You found me,” he agrees, ragged. “Please, fuck me?”

“Our boy,” Gavin says, making it sound a lot like an endearment and pulling Jeremy back to some kind of sense. Light has also come back, and oh- they’ve decided to let him see them.

Good. He likes their smiles, and he’ll hoard every one.

“Hey,” Michael says, unusually gentle, “do you want anyone else here tonight?” It’s unspoken but clear what he means, and Jeremy does for a minute consider how it could play out, channelling all that’s running electric under his skin right now into a show of a fight that he halfway means until he cedes to Geoff, or to Ryan, to be used as they want.

“Nah,” he says, “I- or only if you get bored.”

“Not bloody likely,” Gavin says, and Michael seems oddly thoughtful at first then just smiles.

“Know the difference between praying and begging, Li’l J?” he asks.

“You wanna find out?”

 

*

 

Jack is very tired.

“I am very tired,” Jack says, when Geoff enters. “Say nothing and go away.”

Geoff says nothing and goes away, maybe sniggering a little.

Jack is very tired, because some of the walls in this house are not nearly soundproof enough. But at least people seem to be enjoying themselves.

Geoff remembers sharing the kind of room college kids can afford with Burnie and the others, up to and including the unfortunate times they happened to coincide in heats and ended up breaking a bunch of furniture – in the conventional ways and occasionally others - to ensure they didn’t do anything worse. As for here and now, he thinks they’ve got off pretty light.

 

*

 

One day Ryan and Jeremy will stop dancing carefully around each other, figuratively speaking. It probably isn’t today.

Today, however, Ryan does have Jeremy pinned to the couch, pressing as close as he can.

“Want you,” Ryan admits like it’s either painful or like he’s sorry for it, “But don’t want to hurt you.”

“Okay,” Jeremy says.

“So, okay,” he says, self-deprecating enough he hopes it doesn’t come across at all as condescending, that’s not what he wants. “We got a system for that. They say red, yellow, green, that works.”

Ryan blushes, the fucking nerd, and blushes a whole lot.

Jeremy won’t deny he enjoys it but he also won’t tell a soul. They have a dance to finish.

 

*

 

Gavin goes into heat and flies through the house like an unstoppable force, probably because he is. He loves them all in absolutely equal measure but he needs to know, every time it hits, he needs to know Geoff wants him and that he has a place here and that Geoff chooses him and that-

Trevor catches him before he breaks something, and in a move of calculated genius deposits him with Jeremy and Michael.

Michael’s already in Jeremy’s lap because he’s maybe a day out of his own, feeling reckless and restless in equal measure. The slightly older of the pack, they worry about that. He likes to point out that they’d still have to admit that it’s why they have what they have now and they should also be grateful.

“Tapping out,” Michael says, and kisses at Jeremy’s forehead to show no hard feelings. “That’s lots and I’m tired.” Jeremy adores him, both always and especially in that moment.

It’s also a strange kind of gift he never thought he’d have any claim to, to have Gavin take his hand and lead him upstairs to Geoff’s room to join them.

“Hey-” Geoff starts, about to turn off whatever he’s playing, but Jeremy moves faster.

He gets close on his knees and presses a cheek to Geoff’s thigh because anything more would be presumptuous. If Geoff just kept playing, and wanted to use him to get off anyway just because he’s there, Jeremy would be okay with both those things.

Geoff does not keep playing.

“You’re plotting,” Geoff says weakly at them, seconds later.

“No!” Gavin says, greatly offended, then turns back to Jeremy and finishes plotting.

They’ll give Geoff anything he wants soon, something they know and he maybe suspects. But first he’s going to keep the hell still while they track each and every one of those tattoos with careful fingers and lightening quick kisses, because they have decided to.

Well, no. It’s because it’s Gavin’s call. And Gavin decided to.

 

 


	12. we'll get this right if just to spite you

 

Word is Jon Risinger can get you pretty much anything you could imagine, for the right price.

Jon is also, counterintuitively, the rare kind of person who will end up fucking himself over just because he’s too kind not to.

The alpha kid in front of him is shifting nervously, with a purchase he probably isn’t of legal age to make. There are pills that you can get sometimes, that let you pretend to be something else unless anyone gets too close. Jeremy’s not one to pretend, but Matt and Trevor are so close so often now they’re all running that he’d prefer to drug himself nearly useless rather than risk them.

Jon fucks himself over completely, and can’t even bring himself to regret it.

“On the house,” he says, handing over half a pack of suppressants, tucking the rest in his back pocket because he’s having no one’s overdose on his hands.

“Oh,” Jeremy says, a bit doubtful and a bit confused.

Then he hugs Jon fierce enough to lift him off the ground.

Jon fucks himself over sometimes, but also sometimes he doesn’t really and there’s beautiful little moments like that.

 

*

 

Burnie calls in from LA after checking up on what Jack would probably refer to as extended pack, and Geoff would refer to as absolute assholes. He has a text in his pocket from Gavin about the latest object he and Dan destroyed on camera.

“What are you smiling to yourself about?” Ryan asks him.

“This family,” Geoff says, because he only just realised. “It spans _cities_.”

Ryan kisses his cheek in lieu of reply.

 

*

 

“Hey,” Matt says quietly one night. Jeremy has Trevor’s skinny self tucked tight to him and his back pressed to the wall, both of them as far at the edge of the mattress as they can because making sure Matt has the rest of it to himself isn’t the same as being able to afford a room with a separate bed but it’s something. Nights like this, Jeremy feels a little like the entire world has shrunk down to just the three of them. He wonders what it says about him that he doesn’t mind.

“Hey, Jeremy,” Matt says, reaching across what little space there is to touch at Jeremy’s face lightly. “Lie to me?”

“Sure,” Jeremy says sleepily. “It’s all – it’s all very simple. You’re strong and alpha, or beta and you know what to do, or-” he kisses Matt’s fingers, where they rest against his mouth, “-you’re omega and make things better just by being there. Everyone knows where their place is and no one ever fucks it up.”

“Liar,” Matt says, confidently but also fondly.

Jeremy wishes he were stronger, and could give Matt something better than all this.

 

*

 

Geoff has friends in places all around who are pack but that are either too happy in their independence or not quite ready to settle, and he proudly introduces Lindsay to Jeremy as someone who could teach even Trevor a thing or two about getting his shit together. That's a high bar, and as far as Jeremy is concerned that one is still with the judges. Michael is in her orbit the entire time she’s visiting, shameless about it.

"Betas," Gavin says thoughtfully. “It might be a red-haired thing?”

Jack and Lindsay look at him.

“I am fiery,” Lindsay says solemnly. “I like to work against stereotype.”

She’s incredible, and not only because Jeremy has never met anyone like this before, a beta right on the edges who is still playing with each option like she can look destiny in the face and tell it to go fuck itself.

“How does it work?” he asks her shyly, after dinner is done and the two of them have run off to the back porch. He never thought intention could play a role.

“I decided that I’m still making up my mind,” Lindsay tells him, and she’s got potential to be a better alpha than all of them put together if she chose to, surpass that as beta or omega, do anything she wants.

Jeremy tells her so.

“So okay, I’m going to fight Geoff for you,” she informs Jeremy, smiling because it’s a joke but the soft parts of it she means for real.

 

*

 

Jeremy finds them by genuine accident, a small plastic bag forgotten in the bathroom.

“There's only one way you’d know they were even suppressants,” Michael retaliates immediately, snatching them back.

“Yep,” Jeremy says, and like that the argument ends.

Michael slides down to sit against the wall and Jeremy joins him.

“I’m just tired,” Michael says, head ducked down so they can both carefully ignore the fact that he’s a little red-eyed. “Tired of bumping into some asshole and feeling like I have to move out of his way rather than tell him to get the fuck out of mine.”

“And then you decide to tell him to get the fuck out of your way anyway.” Jeremy says.

“Well, yeah-” Michael snaps back, then catches himself and scrubs his hand across his face. “This is usually the part where I get a lecture on not putting that kind of bullshit in my body.”

“Not from me you don’t,” Jeremy says. “What the fuck do I know about being omega?”

“Why did you do it?” Michael asks eventually.

Jeremy hesitates. “I was not sure I’d be safe for- not safe.”

“Tiring,” Michael says, sympathetically, shifts just slightly to rest a hand over Jeremy’s.

“Tiring,” Jeremy agrees.

 

*

 

It’s not even that big of a deal, making the claim official, just a formality. Legally he’s making the decision for Trevor and Matt as well, but everyone involved knows that they have him wrapped around their little fingers and if they wanted to wait then it’d be a long stretch of Jack nearly having an aneurysm but they'd have as long as they needed.

Maybe what puts Trevor over the line is finding out that Jeremy will be the fourth alpha on paper, because once upon a time Geoff leant on Hullum's name and had Michael on the records as alpha from the beginning.

“What could go wrong?” Jeremy says, bouncing back on his heels with a little nervous energy.

Geoff regards him with extreme concern. “What could- have you met us? Have you literally ever met us?”

Gavin coughs, interrupting. Of course he’s going to dart in and get the honours at the last minute. “Hey, boi – be ours?” It’s a severely abridged version of the words, but okay.

“Yeah,” says Jeremy.

“Mostly mine,” Gavin adds cheekily, going completely off-script and causing loud protest from every corner.

 


	13. an epilogue from complicated lives

  
Matching up desires and limits can be hard enough between one alpha and omega or beta, or more accurately between one person and another, but with nine who have each got their own personal brand of emotional stuntedness going on it's pretty much a disaster zone.

They get through though, because of two things. The first is that they love each other. The second, a sort of subset of the first, is that they absolutely fucking trust each other.

 

  
*

 

  
Jack is not at all smug about the fact that he predicted that this would happen with Ryan and Jeremy the first time. There aren't many times he wishes he was wrong, but this is one of them.

In polite society it's called the biological imperative. That's a very fancy term for "bullshit my body wants despite good sense," but unfortunately it also means that with both of them less than a week from heat Ryan can't help but want to pin down and just take, and Jeremy can't help but be defiant. That would be fine except that he also pushes right to his limit fighting back only enough to try to let Ryan know he's worth it, and when he surrenders he surrenders too fast, too hard. Ryan's not being that rough with him. He's just manhandling him a little and pushing his head down, but Jeremy falls into old bad habits and says "thank you," blankly, obediently, every time it hurts, and "green" when he wants desperately to say "red."

Ryan realises very quickly, notices he's shaking a little, and stops immediately. He drags them across the house and hands him over to Gavin and Michael. Gavin is too sleepy to do anything but hug Jeremy close in his bed, which is probably the best reaction for the situation and both fall into sleep together almost immediately.

Michael, a little more sharply awake, glances back and forth between them. "Well, my friend," he says, "you fucked up."

"I know it," Ryan says shortly, and leaves.

There's a whole big fight later, Geoff and Jack yelling and Gavin throwing dirty looks, but Jeremy steps in and ends it.

"He did nothing wrong," Jeremy says, an arm slung affectionate around Ryan. Ryan looks a little taken aback at it. "We talked about the whole thing, I froze up and didn't call it, but he had my back and called it for me."

Ryan tells Geoff later, a bit red-eyed, that Jeremy is too generous to be let anywhere near him. Geoff says he disagrees, but that one is Jeremy's call.

Jeremy's back, at his own request and a little shyly, in Ryan's bed later that week. Ryan is too much of a coward to refuse him, to both their benefit. Mostly his. The second time around, they have the measure of each other, and match in force just right. They also literally break the bed, which is ridiculous, it was solid fucking wood. This time, they kiss each other and pull close. Every good deed has a price, so they wake to the bedframe broken, and laugh themselves silly when they realise they were both too distracted to know how or when they actually did that.

 

*

 

  
Trevor has issues with anyone being near Matt except Jeremy. Gavin, eternally the optimist, breaks through.

"You're scary as shit," he informs Trevor, "but I'm not going to not be friends with Matt because of it. He's cool."

Trevor blinks. "He is," he agrees. "Yeah, he is."

It's like some sort of prehistoric bone-deep instinct towards safety, is best how Matt can explain it. There was a time, when they were younger, that Trevor pinned Jeremy to the mattress face-down and pliant, and for some reason it made Matt feel safe enough to come close. It's because he's alpha, not because he's Jeremy. Because he's Jeremy is the only reason Matt tells them both, one night, that he doesn't need it any more. He has to say a whole lot of other stuff after, and convince them, but it's true.

Jeremy is safe, and it was always true, but he knows it now.

  
*

 

  
Michael submits, if you could even call it that, at the last minute and like it's a game and he's secretly winning, which they all find endearing rather than anything else. Gavin demands to be spoiled without even seeming to know he's doing it. Geoff, who would give either of them anything, is pretty okay with how things are.

He was taught, a long time ago, there was only one way you fuck an omega that belongs to you. Hard, fast, hold them down. He always knew it was bullshit, which is part of - although not all of - why he ran with Burnie, Joel, Gus and Matt so long. They were his match in biological fucking imperative, so there was no risk of him hurting them.

Alfredo scares him a bit, because he's as gentle as the textbooks said an omega should be. Geoff fucking hates those textbooks.

"You don't have to stay," he says, one night, with Alfredo leant against him as they play video games. "We'd love it, but that's not a good enough reason. You can go wherever, do whatever you want-"

"I want to stay," Alfredo says firmly, and like he knows the answer will be yes, "I'd like to stay and kick your ass at Destiny for all of the forseeable future."

 

  
*

 

  
Geoff cedes to Jack every time, laying back and telling him to do whatever he wants, and the first few years Jack thinks it's coincidence but then realises it's politics.

"You do know me fucking you doesn't make me alpha too, right? I'm asking for a friend."

Geoff, snuggling close, laughs a little. "Nah, not that." He's drifting off already. "Just wanted to let you to know you got the power, with us. Dumb way to do it. But anyway, just so you know I'm all yours."

They say alphas are the main protectors. In at least this one case, they got that wrong. Geoff will always do well at protecting him, but Jack's going to make Geoff safe, untouchable.

The pack starts off just like that, Geoff sleeping soundly and Jack deciding that he's going to take care of him, and it grows over the years. But they do pretty good, and the kids they find are even better than they are, which is how it should be. The future looks like Gavin and Michael asleep together on the couch, like Trevor reaching for Matt and Jeremy with a bit of a challenge in his eyes, a slight something that says _these ones are mine_. It looks like all of them cooking lasagna together and making jokes. It looks pretty bright, to be honest.

 

 


	14. dvd bonus (do it by the textbook)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> from a request

 

 

> _**alpha** [ˈalfə] one possessing the biological traits of dominance, physical and otherwise, and highest ranking within the social hierarchy of a pack. Where the pack is sufficiently large, secondary alphas may be claimed to maintain order. However, sufficient submission to the primary alpha is required to mitigate the risk of violence due to proximity. An alpha unconstrained by the heirarchy of pack must be considered dangerous and reported immediately._

  
Incontrovertible truths, right there in the schoolbook, and they all repeat it back dutifully to the teacher. It doesn't bother Jeremy then, something of an abstract, because all of that is very far away and when he wrestles with Trevor until the lunch bell while Matt provides colour commentary there isn't a single difference between them he can tell. As puberty hits it's a little different, he holds back because he's stronger without trying, has to make an effort not to growl in the back of his throat when someone pisses him off, notices that betas and omegas will step out of his way walking down the pavement even if he's the asshole taking up too much room and has already started to move out of theirs.

It starts to actually haunt him not much longer after he first starts noticing these things, when they're on the run together just the three of them; _an alpha unconstrained by the heirarchy of pack must be considered dangerous._ He finds somewhere that will sell him a taser without checking for ID. He hands it to Trevor, because he knows Matt wouldn't use it even if he had to.

"Just in case," he mumbles.

Trevor says, blank in the way he is when he's furious, "in case of what."

"In case of me," Jeremy says quietly, eyes down.

The truth is, Jeremy could throw a punch hard enough to break bone and take ten hits just as hard, and he loves this strength only for what it allows him to protect. The truth is, if you want to see something dangerous, give an omega a taser and see what he does to the cop who finds them sleeping huddled together in a bus stop one night and tries to drag Jeremy away.

 

 

> _**beta** [ˈbiːtə] one possessing neutral biological qualities and the necessary versatility and obedience to fulfil roles within the pack as needed, submissive to the alpha however able to protect omegas when required. Betas can provide a valuable intermediary within pack conflict. Multiple betas claimed to a pack are encouraged, to the limit that the alpha can provide them with oversight and sufficient instruction._

  
"What should I do?"

Jack had to hold back a disbelieving laugh the first time Geoff said it, back when they were young, Geoff a little wild after his first pack split; all of them too alpha to stay together longer than the defiance of youth told them to do it as something between an experiment and a fuck you to everyone else. Geoff's been hanging around Jack at the oddest places, the bar Jack likes, his favourite diner. He's made conversation but he's never made a move.

"Traditionally," Jack says, as they hover in a back alley, Geoff having pulled Jack off a guy who tried to grab an omega who was clearly saying no, and crying as she did. Geoff sent the guy running and pulled Jack outside. "You either knock me down and send me running too, or you claim me. Honestly, I'm not in the mood for either."

"Right." Geoff says, awkward. "Cool." He does nothing.

"Would you like to buy me a burger?"

Geoff brightens. They become pack over the next week without saying a word, they just know somehow, and Jack is his second for a reason. It's because Jack adores him, and also because Jack does what he's told only and precisely when he wants to.  

“We got a kid. Little alpha kid, all… all messed up. Jack? What should I do?” Geoff says, years later, over the phone. Jack thinks about Geoff, with fewer tattoos and an oversized t-shirt in an alley, holding on to Jack and asking for direction. He knows this, he's got this.

 

 

> _**omega** [ˈəʊmɪɡə] one possessing a biological imperative to provide comfort through submission and physical contact. Omegas are a valuable asset to a pack and subsequently can be the cause of tensions and competition, although being claimed or reclaimed multiple times may be damaging psychologically. An omega alone is highly vulnerable and as such they should be claimed as early as is possible._

  
Michael's got a stupid game he likes to play, and he deliberately doesn't think about how the dates match up, when he started doing this and when Ray went away. When he's right on the edge of a heat, he strolls out in on the town with a half grin because he knows every alpha out there can't help but at least glance sideways at him. The conventional wisdom, of course, would be for an omega to stay in the house. But he's got Gav on board, distracting Ryan, who always worries the most, by sitting on his lap and waving Ryan's driver's licence in his face.

"Can you believe, Ryan," he says, "that you existed for eight whole years before I did?"

"How did I last without you in my life?" Ryan says drily, and falls into banter enough to completely forget to play watchdog.

So Michael heads out, enjoying the risk of it, but staying to crowded enough streets because he's a dumbass but not a fucking idiot. That is, until he makes a detour and happens to glance down an alley and sees the kid without a jacket and with bright-coloured hair, kind of slumped against the wall and tucked in on himself looking like he's having trouble standing upright. It's a terrible idea, to go over there. Michael curses his stupid fucking omega instincts, and heads into the alley to see if he's okay.

He's about a step away when the kid looks up then jerks to his feet and Michael immediately knows he's a stray alpha, and they're in an enclosed space alone so Michael plays it safe and just takes a swing. Might buy him enough time to run.

"M'sorry," kid says from the ground. He's baring his wrists, absolutely textbook. "No trouble from me, pal, just startled here."

Alphas don't _do_ that. And Michael didn't count on finding something intriguing, feels the warm pulse at his wrist rise a little higher. Gav has taught him what all his schooling never managed to hammer home, which is that there is a lot of strength involved in handing over power to someone else when you decide it is the right thing to do. This kid knows what he is and that he's alone with an omega in an alley, and he's doing something strong.

Michael wants him. Michael's gonna have him.

 


End file.
